How to setup LinkedIn group for Brand/Business

LinkedIn is a pioneering business social networking website. One of the most popular social network for business professionals to connect with contacts and on some occasions make new contacts. In Europe its giving Xing a good run for its money. General bit of statistics on Xing v/s LinkedIn (source):

Xing

• November 1, 2003 - 5 1/2 years old
• 7 million members
• 26’000 groups
• 16 languages
• 600’000 paying members
• 240 employees from 22 nations

LinkedIn

• May 5, 2003 - 6 years old
• 40 million members, thereof 10 million in Europe and 800’000 in France
• 300’000+ user groups
• 4 languages
• 345 employees

Why use LinkedIn Groups

Clearly with 300,000+ user groups it is a fast growing area of LinkedIn. Many brands and businesses use  LinkedIn group as an uninterrupting way of marketing. Users can choose to keep track and participate in the discussion when they feel its most appropriate. LinkedIn groups to keep users updated on their services and products. Recently many event organisers have kept potential exhibitors and visitors informed through their LinkedIn group, a good example is Internet World - Future of Social Media with over 5,000+ members.

LinkedIn group is also a fantastic example of getting business leads as some members recommend LinkedIn groups to their contacts. It is a fantastic place to recommend people for jobs or look for one if someone is offering it. What makes LinkedIn group stand out is the fact that users decide as to how often they would like to be kept updated. So they can choose to be informed every time a message is posted or once every month. The advantage is that you are not interrupting or spamming valuable members of your group, increasing trust in your offering.

How to setup a LinkedIn group

Step 1: Create a LinkedIn group with a good description and your logo. Make sure to tell users if it is an official or unofficial group for your Brand or Business. Users should know if they can raise their voices on this group and more importantly if it is worthwhile their time

Step 2: Send Invitations to your current LinkedIn contacts. Nothing worst than an empty LinkedIn group to which you have to contribute. First thing the user would look at is how active the group is via the last 7 days activity (see image on the right). Hence it is your responsibility to keep the number of users increasing and add discussions/topics to the group. This increases the confidence of the new member who join your network.

Step 3: Add content to the site via Announcements, Discussions, News and Jobs. Use Announcements if you want all your members to get an email instantly about something important to your group. Discussions is where you can start a conversation with your members and get them to add content to your group. News as the name suggests allows users to keep track of the latest, although the neat feature here is that you can update users by including a RSS feed of another site. So for instance if your company/brand has a blog you can post the URL.

Step 4: Promote outside LinkedIn: If you truly want to see fruits of your hard work you would need to promote the tools via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other online resources. The fact is that LinkedIn is not responsible for promoting your group, in fact by default it doesn’t even suggest groups to users who might be interested in it. So you have to put in all the work to get users on it in the first place.

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